im workin on it, dun worry. im gonna do some traveling starting early march and be gone for like over a month, so i gotta get it done by then . . . i bought half the electronics last night, but i got my day job, and no one is payin me to do this

I've got a suggestion. How about some kind of a toy scrapping list? There are lots of super cheap toys and electronics out there with motors and things in 'em. maybe we can compile a list of a few good ones.us

Scrapping toys is very much dependent on parts you need . . . but yea its an important skill.

I have a nice robot I built a few years ago, but havnt yet documented on SoR, that uses a hacked RC toy. I promise Ill write that one up at some point in the next few months. Its been on my things-to-do list for awhile . . .

so when you say 'maybe we can compile a list of a few good ones', does that mean you are volunteering?

if so . . .

announcement:Ive finally released the member written tutorials section. Its still in beta testing, but now open to the public to sign up. Simply put, its free webspace to teach others about your robot. For more information, go here:http://www.societyofrobots.com/member_tutorials/node/12

i agree. i am new to the scene and am eager to create something interesting for a change.(most of what i make is easy, ie; amps, audio equipment, ect.) all of this microprocessor stuff goes right over my head. i've found the tutorials really helpful, but i need some hands on learning.

How about a tutorial on making your own gearbox? And how to calculate/create various ratios? And maybe stress tolerances for plastic / steel gears b4 they strip or break. And anything else related to it.

to be honest, I discourage people from making their own gearboxes. you wont save much money, and your rigged up design will be much less efficient than a purchased gearbox . . .

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And how to calculate/create various ratios?

but i have written a really detailed tutorial for gears:http://www.societyofrobots.com/mechanics_gears.shtmlthis should give enough theory so someone can design their own gearbox, but it does lack some hands-on knowledge . . . ill look into adding on to that tutorial with some gearing ive done in the past.

ALL the tutorials had a thread in a separate part of the forum. This way, they wouldn't get repeated in the forum, and then there is a steady reference point from which the site can be expanded/corrected incremetally.

Stickys need to be used, perhaps, more often, since there are some trends in 'newbie' topics. I know this site is very friendly so people wouldn't probably mind repeating themselves if it's going to help someone out, but it's just my thought on the matter. At least then, the topic can be expanded and 'the solution' can be worked upon, rather than working on 4 or 5 different threads. Who knows what you could miss! It is, however, quite difficult to subcategorise in such a vast subject area.

Also, even though, yes, people like to be secretive, why not have a posting forum for competitions. Essentially, what is a competition if there is no risk? I would happily share information if I was competing with someone, mainly because it would encourage me to get better and is the way forward for encouraging others to find out the 'tricks of the trade' or whatever. For example, in the case of stampy the sumo bot.

There is also the big question of whether, as is said somewhere, not to 'reinvent the wheel'. Could information/tutorials be brought in and adapted from other sites (after asking them of course)? I do think, however, if this were to be done, the site could lose some of its homebrew appeal

As always, however, this is a fantastic site with a lot of potential

Logged

"The truth is, you can't hide from the truth, cos the truth is all there is" - Handsome Boy Modeling School

Ive definitely considered this. Mostly I didnt do it cause I only recently thought of the idea like 6 months ago, and was/am too lazy to go and add forum links for 80 something tutorials. Ill slowly work on this when i get time (im crazy busy till this summer).

With the new member tutorials site, Im allowing people to make comments and ask questions right on the tutorial pages.

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Stickys need to be used, perhaps, more often, since there are some trends in 'newbie' topics.

I guess I should make a 'newbies read this before posting' sticky post. Will probably cut down on the questions and repeated posts. Ill do this now . . .

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Also, even though, yes, people like to be secretive, why not have a posting forum for competitions.

which competitions would you suggest? the problem with most competitions is that they are all local, and rules change every year. i think FIRST would be the best, but im really convinced people wont give out secrets . . . myself included . . .

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There is also the big question of whether, as is said somewhere, not to 'reinvent the wheel'. Could information/tutorials be brought in and adapted from other sites (after asking them of course)? I do think, however, if this were to be done, the site could lose some of its homebrew appeal

What I have done in the past is look at other peoples tutorials, then rewrite them way better. Some of my tutorials were combinations of many sub-par tutorials combined and fixed up. I could of course copy/paste them, but Im very much for original content.

so one of the things i like about this forum is it doesn't have loads of different categories.a lot of forums out there have a different list for every small thing. i think it discourages people from posting if they don't see a heading that suits their post.

the SOR forum on the other hand keeps things nice and simple.it's easy to pick a relevent heading when you only have the choices: "Electronics", "Software", "Mechanics and Construction" and "Misc".

i beat you to it, and added it yesterday to the vote i also recently increased number of allowed votes to 5

dunk, I 100% agree with you. I've seen many other forums, and they all have like 10-30+ categories - frustratingly large and confusing! Im resisting it for the same reason. If there are a large number of competition posts in the future, Ill add a category. But at the moment, the entire forum comprises I think of ~20 competition related posts. Same for advertising, and buying/selling of stuff. I am still considering adding a tutorials related category, but am just too busy to implement it for now.

Im definitely open to ideas and change (or at least I try to be), so dont be discouraged in the future for offering more ideas!

Hows the $50 robot tutorial comming? I cant wait for that one!Im sure other people have said it before, but thanks for all your tutorials and help you give us beginers, your help and others who post here is invaulable to me, because I dont know anyone who really knows a whole lot about robots. Thanks agian.

Ive actually seriously considered this. I spent 4 hours trying to write up a script for my intro page, too. But after writing the script up, I realized it would be a HUGE undertaking and that it wouldnt do much more than repeat my written tutorials. In the end I gave up because I didnt have a good video recorder . . .

Back in college I had a prof that would start EVERY lecture with a video of a robot. It really made learning more fun, even if I didnt learn anything from the video So I want to do the same . . .

Last summer I started adding video to many of my new tutorials and am slowly getting better at it. I will keep up this trend of putting a supplementary video in most of my tutorials. If there is a particular tutorial that you think would be much more useful with a video, let me know!

I know that this post is rather old, but I thought I'd chime in for a second. You don't need a good video recorder for all of a video tutorial. There are programs out there (free ones like Wink) that let you take screenshots, movements of mouse and keyboard, etc, form them into a flash movie, with voice recording overtop. If you have a relatively recent digital camera, you can easily take the pictures of the boards, move the mouse around when you talk to show exactly what you're doing, put up notes and stuff, and then when you want to show something working, the digital camera should be able to take short movies that you can import into the flash file.

It would be fairly easy to do, and would take far less space than if it were 100% video.

I haven't messed around with interfacing anytype of camera/vision system to a microcontroller - I have actually read the vision tutorial but I was wondering if you could add a little more "in-depth" look at interfacing the hardwear together.

That's all rather camera dependent...What camera were you going to use?

Well thats the problem - I am not really sure, I have never played with interfacing video to a microcontroller and to tell you the truth - I am a bit lost on where to begin - I got a general idea on how it might work but nothing in-depth to actually get it to function.

It would be great if you could talk about or direct me to a place that has more info on choosing a camera along with interfacing etc.

The microcontroller I hope to use will be one of the PIC 16F or 18F series - probably 16F877A

For that you are going to want to offload allot of the processing on to another chip.Look at the CMU cam

Hmmm ok, just out of curiosity how would you go about interfacing a webcam type vision device directly to a microcontroller - if possible?

If I used a separate PIC chip just for video processing would the camera feed out a string of RBG values for each pixel serially? would the microcontroller not have the processing power to be able to analyze it?

The CMU cam I will look into and I have a feeling you are right in directing me to it but I am also intrested in exploring a more "do it yourself" approach.

This may be a bit off topic but - I am also intrested in at one point adding some type of wireless interface to the microcontroller carrier board - through blue tooth or RF - I was wondering if you had any recommendations as to the best "low-cost" way of doing this - I have seen some "kits" that come with everything needed but the ones I have looked at are 300+ US dollars.

I am also intrested in at one point adding some type of wireless interface to the microcontroller carrier board - through blue tooth or RF

this is far easier.the first thing you want to do is get your microcontrolers UART working. you can use the UART to either communicate to other microcontrollers UARTs or (via a level shifter such as a MAX232) to a PC serial port.once you have this step in place it's fairly easy to insert wireless radio modules (such as a pair of easyradio or zigbee modules) in place of the UART's RX and TX lines making the whole thing wireless.search this forum for "UART" "wireless" "bluetooth" etc. as it's been discussed a few times before.

For that you are going to want to offload allot of the processing on to another chip.Look at the CMU cam

This may be a bit off topic but - I am also intrested in at one point adding some type of wireless interface to the microcontroller carrier board - through blue tooth or RF - I was wondering if you had any recommendations as to the best "low-cost" way of doing this

Yes,i want a tutorial on a robot which can be controlled by a simple laptop or a computerthat can be able to receive voices from computer and play them via a speakarand should also be able to listen to voices and play them inside the computerAnd a camera that could display the output on laptop or computer.Is it possible without a micro controller

Please make the tutorial soon, i want to take part in a school competition (June)